Pointless Questions...with Aaron Mucciolo
Im too tired to write an intro to the column
this week. Instead, Ill just say: Mmmmmm
Donuts
Howdy. I was wondering if you could find out for
me if Gibsons bakery sold their recipe for cake donuts to
Entenmanns. An alum told me they did, but well never
know for sure until you lay down the law. Nathan Winkler-Rhoades,
college sophomore
Yee-hah, theres a new sheriff in town and his name is Mooch
(highwaymen and bandits everywhere quiver in fear Im sure).
Entenmanns Bakeries are an East Coast chain, for those of
you who never heard of them, with bakery outlets and a retail biz
in grocery stores throughout the New York State region. A staffer
with their Research and Development Department (no, I dont
know why a bakery has an R+D department) was kind enough to ask
around and called back saying that the Entenmanns recipe is
an original, internal creation.
Your alum friend appears to just be spreading an urban myth. Mr.
Gibson was quite amused by the notion and confirmed Entenmanns
statement.
Why does my gas gauge show full for
a while before moving?
According to NPRs Car Talk guys, your cars
gas gauge is a rough estimator of the fuel in the tank. Quoting
from one of their columns at cartalk.cars.com: Dashboard gas
gauges are good as relative measures. They tell you when the tank
is pretty full, and when its pretty empty. To use them for
anything more precise than that is like using your kitchen scale
to weigh molecules of radioactive plutonium.
The gauge (since youre all dying to know, Im sure) works
on a rheostat the fancy term for a dimmer switch, like the
one you may have in your dining room. Theres a float in the
gas tank attached to this dimmer. The needle in your gauge is on
an electric circuit also attached to this dimmer and is trying to
push itself to the full end of the gauge. As the gas
gets used up and the float sinks it increases resistance in the
rheostat like turning down the lights with a dimmer switch;
its not that less electricity is flowing, its that less
is getting through which makes the needle slowly move towards
empty.
Whats a shawm? Sara Femenella,
befuddled News Clerk (see Arts Calendar, page 11)
Shawm describes any early double-reed wind instrument the
forerunners of the modern oboe. Apparently the calendar listing
is connected with the Cons Historical Performance Program.
Whats up with that no phone blue light
phone by the Lewis Center? Charlotte Phillips, college senior
A better question might be who the hells
in charge of the blue light phones? After being bounced back and
forth a bit between Safety and Security and Facilities Operations,
someone in the latter promised to look into it. Fortunately for
my editor they not only looked into it, they got me an answer.
Its a bit vague, of course. Apparently there was something
wrong with the mechanics of the phone and/or the column that houses
it. They are in the process of removing the column so no one will
be confused and no one in danger will head for it. People walking
by the west side of Lewis may have noticed the column wrapped in
trash bags and duct tape, trying its best to look inconspicuous
before its removal.
Hey Mooch, whats the deal with grits? Carrie
Pierce, college junior. Care to elaborate?
What exactly are grits? My roommate thinks theyre
made from that white part at the tip of the corn kernel. Is this
true? If so, how is that white part prepared to turn it into mush
like that? What process is performed on what sort of material to
make grits?
Okay, I gotcha. Grits are roughly ground corn as opposed
to more finely ground (flour consistency) corn meal. You pretty
much just take corn, grind it up, sift out both the meal and the
hard, insoluble bran or shell, then boil whats left. For those
who have never tried it, its kind of like soupy Cream of Wheat
or thin, more granular oatmeal.
Hominy grits are prepared almost the same way except the corn is
soaked first until the bran comes off. The kernels are then dried
and ground. The result is a smoother finished product.
From what I can gather, the entire corn kernel is used in both cases,
not just the harder, tasteless white part at the bottom of the kernel.
Fuel tanks, blue lights, and shawmns. Were
getting a little less pointless every week. Email your questions,
pointless or point
ful as they may be, to aaron.mucciolo@oberlin.edu
or write to Pointless Questions, c/o The Oberlin Review, Wilder
Box 90, Oberlin OH, 44074. Your name will be used only with your
permission.
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